Until Forever Ends: A Dark Mafia Romance by Adelaide Forrest (black books to read .txt) 📗

"Okay," I agreed. Even though I wanted to keep going, my body ached with the tiredness from the day. I didn't have an active lifestyle in Chicago, and I hadn't done much to change that since coming to Spain. We turned and made our way back for the house, walking through the clearing as I thought over the reality of the last twenty-four hours.

Rafe was gone from the island. He wasn't in my way, and Joaquin had shown he was willing to defy Rafael in some ways.

Yet I hadn't once asked him to take me off the island or to help me escape. I should have wanted my freedom more than anything, but I didn't. He'd taken my choices and left me with no other option but to do what he wanted. But there was something amazing about not being responsible for once.

There was something addictive about having someone else make the hard choices for me, and that terrified me.

Because if I liked it, it was never going to stop.

How long could it really go on before Rafael crossed a line?

Hadn't he already?

My bones hurt. It didn't seem like it should be possible for a person's bones to hurt, but mine throbbed under my skin. The muscles clenched and contracted as I shifted my body in the bathtub of our bedroom to try to soothe my sore limbs. Regina didn't expect Rafael home until the next day, given the nature of his business in Rome, apparently, but I needed to be able to move by the time he returned.

If I couldn't walk, he would know I'd done something wrong. He'd know that there was a secret I kept, and I knew the moment he started asking questions would be when he got the answers I so desperately wanted to keep from him for as long as possible.

If I had to be punished, I wanted to get more than one lesson out of it first.

I sighed, leaning my back against the tub fully and letting the water glide over my skin. It had long since cooled down from the scorching hot that I'd filled it with, but I couldn't bring myself to move.

I didn't know if I could get out on my own, and the thought brought a chuckle to my lips. Maybe I'd just stay in the bathtub until Rafe came home and discovered me as a pruned mess.

I moved slowly, forcing myself to sit up first and wincing at the pain that pulled through my stomach muscles. "Are you feeling alright, Princesa?" Rafael asked suddenly, standing in the doorway that was open to the bedroom. I hadn't even heard it open, so absorbed in my own pain.

"Rafe," I gasped, turning my head to look at him in shock. All the bravado I’d felt in his absence was nothing but a fleeting memory the moment I was hit with the overwhelming reality of him again.

Despite the pain in my body, I forced myself to move as naturally as I could. To not allow my stiff joints to show just how sore I was. "I'm just feeling a little queasy," I lied. The random moment of nausea I'd had the day before hadn't returned since, proving to be nothing more than a case of being too tired.

It seemed ridiculous when I didn't do much, but the emotional weight of all that had happened put me in a constant feeling of needing to sleep. Rafe walked forward, leaning toward me and touching his lips to mine briefly as his fingers tested the water. "It's cold," he observed.

"It is," I admitted. "I was just being lazy and didn't want to get out."

He smiled, the dark grin making my own falter. "I want to show you something," he said, holding out a hand for me. I swallowed before placing mine in his, letting him pull me to standing. He wrapped a towel around me, drying me off and picking out pants for me to wear while I stared at him in my own nerves.

Did he know?

He held out underwear for me, and I placed my hands on his shoulders before stepping into them and letting him pull them up my legs to cover my body. I knew something was very wrong, because there was no world in which I wouldn't have thought Rafael would want to fuck me the moment he came home.

Unless he'd had another woman to entertain him in his absence. My old insecurities plagued me as he helped me pull a sports bra over my head.

"What's wrong, mi reina?" he asked, his fingers tracing the seam of my pussy through my panties. "Did you do something that you shouldn't have while I was gone?"

I swallowed, letting him help me into the jeans he held out. "I think we both already know the answer to that."

He hummed, pulling a shirt over my head and leaving me to stare at him in annoyance. "Well you clearly don't need your husband's cock," he mused. "So I'm not sure why you seem disappointed that I'm dressing you." Socks and shoes followed, driving home the point that we would be leaving the house.

I suddenly wondered if I’d be returning.

"Where are you taking me?" I asked when he took my hand and guided me out of the bedroom. Regina smiled as if nothing was wrong as we made our way past her and into the SUV in the front driveway. There probably was nothing wrong in her world.

She wasn't the one who'd defied the devil and felt like he was leading her to her funeral.

Rafael pulled up to a stable with barn hands working through the open aisle in the center. He helped me out of the car while I stared at him in confusion, letting him guide me to the massive gate across the front of the open barn doors.

"You have horses?" I asked, turning to look up at him as he pulled